Larra, Mariano Jose De

LARRA, MARIANO JOSE DE (1809-1837), Spanish satirist, was born at Madrid in 1809. His father served as a regimental doctor in the
French army, and was compelled to leave the Peninsula with his family in 1812. In 1817 Larra returned to Spain, knowing less Spanish than French. His nature was
disorderly, his education was imperfect, and, after futile attempts to obtain a degree in medicine or law, he made an imprudent marriage at the age of twenty,
broke with his relatives and became a journalist. On the 27th of April 1831 he produced his first play, No mas mostrador, based on two pieces by Scribe and
Dieulafoy. Though wanting in originality, it is brilliantly written, and held the stage for many years. On the 24th of September 1834 he produced Marias, a play
based on his own historical novel, El Doncel de Don Enrique el Doliente (1834). The drama and novel are interesting as experiments, but Larra was essentially a
journalist, and the increased liberty of the press after the death of Ferdinand VII. gave his caustic talent an ampler field. He was already famous under the
pseudonyms of " Juan Perez de Munguia " and " Figaro " which he used in El Pobrecito Hablador and La Revista Espanola respectively. Madrid laughed at his grim
humour; ministers feared his vitriolic pen and courted him assiduously; he was elected as deputy for Avila, and a great career seemed to lie before him. But the
era of military pronunciamientos ruined his personal prospects and patriotic plans. His writing took on a more sombre tinge; domestic troubles increased his
pessimism, and, in consequence of a disastrous love-affair, he committed suicide on the 13th of February 1837. Larra lived long enough to prove himself the
greatest prose-writer that Spain can boast during the i pth century. He wrote at great speed with the constant fear of the censor before his eyes, but no sign
of haste is discernible in his work, and the dexterity with which he aims his venomous shafts is amazing. His political instinct, his abundance of ideas and his
forcible, mordant style would have given him a foremost position at any time and in any country; in Spain, and in his own period, they placed him beyond all
rivalry. (J. F.-K.)